Convicted cocaine runner Nicola Ciconte is living the high life on the Gold Coast

A MAFIA cocaine trafficker on the run from Italian authorities is leading the life of a swindler on the Gold Coast.

Nicola Ciconte, who faces being deported to spend 25 years in jail over a half-tonne cocaine importation into Australia, has left a trail of debts and business failures since he moved to the Coast six years ago.

Despite a looming extradition bid, Ciconte, 57, appeared relaxed while enjoying a smoke and a drink with friends this month at his regular watering hole, the Woodchoppers Inn at Mudgeeraba.

"I've got nothing to say to you," he told The Courier-Mail.

The former finance broker was sentenced in May in his absence by an Italian court, which found he was the Australian point man in a plan to smuggle up to 500kg of cocaine via Italy into Melbourne between 2002 and 2004.

Italian police recorded his meetings and phone calls with Mafia boss Vincenzo Barbieri, who was jailed over the plot then slain by gunmen last year, but key evidence could not be used to prosecute Ciconte in Australia.

Italian prosecutors said last month that Ciconte, who had family connections to the notorious Calabrian mafia, was "extremely dangerous".

Ciconte, whose syndicate's cocaine haul was worth at least $35 million, now lives in a rented Mudgeeraba apartment, without any visible means of support.

He is known to local police, who escorted him from his ex-partner's home last November.

A lawyer for the ex-partner, who asked not to be named, said she would launch legal action to recover more than $150,000 which Ciconte owed the woman and her brother.

"He lived off my client and sucked her dry financially," the lawyer said.

Ciconte has also not paid for his share of a commercial realty at Robina he jointly took over in 2008, promising to retrieve money from Hong Kong but giving the seller a series of bounced cheques.

He was "special projects manager" at Robina Commercial, which closed its doors in March leaving numerous debts.

His ex-partner will claim Ciconte owes more than $100,000 which he borrowed to cover legal costs before he was jailed in 2005 over an illegal tobacco scam in which he funnelled profits via Hong Kong and Lebanese bank accounts.

Ciconte was also jailed for refusing to answer questions about drug trafficking in an Australian Crime Commission hearing.

But his ex-partner, who took him into her home after he left jail apparently penniless in 2006, learned of his Mafia links several years later through media reports, her lawyer said.

Ciconte also conned $53,000 from her brother for a property subdivision in Mildura, the lawyer alleged.

They removed Ciconte as secretary of another property joint venture after learning he had, without their knowledge, made the company a shareholder in a heavy machinery importer.

Former business associates recalled a "smooth" operator whose contacts ran all the way to the Vatican Bank.

One said he was "blown away" by the mafia revelations as Ciconte seemed "a straight-up, working-class Italian".

"We all used to wine and dine and have a good time. He's good for a drink and a laugh," he said.